The 48 Hawker fighters flying in the sky were originally replaced with twin fire-fighting bomb frames under the belly to suit China's national conditions, but they were replaced back to the single fire-fire bomb frame of the original design, and each plane carried a 500-pound, about 225-kilogram fire-fire bomb in the center of the belly.

They had only one goal on this trip, that is, the light cruiser Kanpur, which was anchored at Changxing Island in Wusongkou to "block the door."

As long as this ship is sunk, the cruiser Pinghai, which is trapped in the Huangpu River, can move freely. Without the obstacle of the cruiser Kanpur, even if there was no Pinghai, Li Huamei's own "Ruijin" and "Jiujiang" alone would be enough to sweep away the remaining ten tattered shallow-water gunboats.

Forty-eight Hawker II fighters, carrying forty-eight five-hundred-pound bombs, passed through the concession and flew in the direction of Wusongkou. The planes were all from Nanjing Airport. After the bombing, they will land at Hongqiao Airport to refuel.

However, the prelude to the battle of the concession was not opened by the Hawker II fighters flying in the sky, but by the three 150-millimeter heavy howitzer positions arranged in the vicinity of Baoshan Town, and the three artillery positions were respectively located in the area from Zhoujiaqiao to Yanghang Town, and their target was the Kanpur anchored in the center of the Yangtze River, about 500 meters west of Changxing Island; as for the 10 warships of the British and Japanese Yangtze River fleets, all the British ships were docked in the waters on the south side of Changxing Island, which was parallel to the Yangtze River, while the Japanese ships were anchored on the north side of Changxing Island on the north bank of the Yangtze River.

Eleven warships were concentrated in such a small area, and in order to avoid collisions, most of them were anchored and moored, while the boilers were lit to maintain a quasi-combat readiness at temperature. On both sides, only one small gunboat paraded in the Yangtze River.

Just before the people in the concession heard the roar of buzzing planes, the artillery position of Yanghang Town, located at Zhoujiaqiao, opened fire in turn at a speed of three seconds.

Because of the distance from the shore, the position of their artillery position was not visible at all, and the cruiser Kanpur, which was ten kilometers away in the middle of the river, was fired by indirect fire.

The three artillery positions were fired one after the other, and the first shells were filled with red. Yellow. Blue three different dyes.

Although Commander Maiden was extremely wary of the Pinghai, he still looked down on the Chinese in his bones, and he did not believe that the Red Army had the courage to take the initiative to provoke and open fire on the combined British and Japanese fleets, so he would ask the earth to anchor the entire fleet in the center of the river and not move. As a result, it became a live target for the young Red Army gunners to fire indirectly.

Artillery indirect aiming fire (indireetgu. NRE) with a scope to aim at the aiming point without aiming at the target. Gives artillery firing direction. And the use of sights to give the gun an angle of fire to the shots carried out. It is mainly used by artillery occupying sheltered positions. The artillery is indirectly aimed and fired, and the level of archery skills of the artillery is extremely high. The people in charge of providing shooting corrections were elite artillery instructors from both the Soviet Union and Germany.

In just six seconds, three artillery positions fired the first volley in the direction of the cruiser Kanpur, ten kilometers away.

From the discharging of the cannon to the arrival of the target ten kilometers away. The time it takes to fly in the air is about fifteen seconds. The Kanpur, which was being fired upon by them, still did not know that a catastrophe was coming, and Commander Maiden, who was in the command room of the warship, once again heard the sound of buzzing planes in the distance, so he looked in the direction of the Shanghai Concession.

"Why is the buzz this time so louder than the last one? Could it be"

Commander Maiden's face changed, and he was about to give the urgent order for the warship to pull anchor and set sail, when the nasty humming sound was suddenly replaced by an even harsher shrill scream.

"Shelling!"

As a veteran sailor who had participated in the Battle of Jutland in World War I, Commander Maiden's face suddenly changed, and he hurriedly grabbed the fixtures around him and issued a loud warning to the crew around him.

Almost as soon as he issued his warning, thunderous explosions erupted one after another, centering on the Kanpur, and countless boiling columns of water erupted on the surrounding river. Countless scattered waves crashed into the hull of the ship, and the Kanpur, which had been anchored and stationary in the middle of the river, was hit by the huge waves stirred up by the explosion, and shook the ship violently from side to side like branches in a storm.

"Damn, it's a 150mm heavy gun!"

The experienced Commander Maiden, hearing the sound of the explosion and the height of the stirred water column, immediately judged that it was a six-inch heavy gun firing at his warship. Luckily, all twenty shells in the first round missed, but they all hit around his warship. Unfortunately, however, it was an extremely dangerous cross-fire, with numerous misses. If the opponent corrects the angle of fire slightly, the chance of being hit is almost 100% when the next round is fired again.

"Abandon the anchor! The main engine is fully open, full speed forward! ”

He gave the right order the first time, but it came too late.

Commander Maiden's order had barely been given, and the sailors beside him had not had time to carry out his order, and the twenty shells of the second wave of the first round of fire had reached his flagship three seconds apart, and three seconds later another wave of twenty shells.

The Kampul shook violently in the second wave of splashes, and a 150-millimeter shell flew like a comet and slammed into the bow deck. The steel plates in the bow of the ship were twisted into a shocking twist shape under the violent impact of the explosion! A few sailors who had no time to evade were swept into the river by the blast of air, the flames and poisonous smoke that rose and the mist enveloped the bow of the ship, and the cracked steel plates made a sharp sound of tearing eardrums as they twisted.

Only one of the 20 shells in the second wave hit the bow, and then the third wave flew to 20 shells, and all of them landed on the river within 20 to 40 meters behind the Kanpur, making a large splash.

Indirect aiming was no better than direct aiming shooting, and the error of the first shot was larger, and only one of the sixty guns of the first batch hit the enemy ship. Countless dead fish floated on the surface of the river, and large swaths of the river were dyed red, yellow, and blue by the dye carried by the cannonballs.

"Abandon the anchor, the main engine is fully open, and move forward at full speed!"

Before the first round of shelling was over, Commander Maiden yelled into the loudspeaker in the engine room. The sailors of the British Empire were well trained after all. Less than ten seconds after receiving the order, the huge iron anchor chain of the Kanpur broke off the ship and sank into the river, and then the Kanpur's propeller began to spin slowly.

The reaction speed of the Kanpur after the shelling was not slow, but it was nothing more than a useless struggle for the prey that fell into the trap, because from the beginning, he should not have stopped on the river at Wusongkou.

"Victory belongs to those who are prepared!"

Lin Han, who had already fused with the Peace Sea, sensed the embarrassment of the Kanpur and sneered in his heart. The shelling. Soviet-German shelling observers at the front. Just help to provide the correction number of the shot. The reason why all these 60 guns opened fire without test firing, and the first wave of fire reached a single hit, and most of the straddle fire and close miss effects. That's because as early as two years ago. Germany aided the technicians of the Nationalist Government in Nanjing. It has already been carefully mapped here.

Where is it suitable to place artillery, where is it suitable for warships to moor, and how far is it. The entire Shanghai area, including the Huangpu River and the estuary of the river, was surveyed by the Germans to help the Nanjing Nationalist Government carry out careful and accurate mapping. The river surface of the Wusongkou section, Chongming Island, Changxing Island, and Hengsha Island are the focus of surveying and mapping.

The layout of the 60 150-mm field guns of the Red Army was predetermined in advance and accurately marked on the map. In the preparatory plan, the Red Army prepared more than 20 artillery positions along the Huangpu River for selection.

Therefore, in the first round of shelling, although the indirect firing method was used, the salvo fire was dared to be carried out directly without test firing.

No sooner had the Kanpur abandoned the Iron Cat than a second round of shelling with a corrected trajectory followed.

After correcting the ballistics, the first wave of the second round of artillery hits, the Kanpur was hit by one shot in the amidship and one in the stern, the one in the amidship went into the sailor's cabin, blowing a hole larger than a bathtub, and the one under the tail waterline tore a two-meter-long hole in the hull, and the river rolled in.

Of the remaining two waves of 40 shells, five hit the ship, blowing up the ship's sighting system and facilities on board, and then the main guns were destroyed by one shot.

The third round of firing almost began with the second round of firing, and for the rest of the time, every three to four seconds, the Kanpur had to endure a wave of 20 rounds of 150 mm heavy grenades, and in just one minute, the ship suffered nearly 30 shells in front of and back, the superstructure was all destroyed, all the guns were dumbed or directly thrown into the river, and the underwater part of the hull was broken in many places, and countless water entered.

In the 45th second of a wave of artillery bombardment, a shell fired from the artillery position of Yangxingzhen entered the command room, sweeping away all the personnel, including the commander of the fleet and the captain of the ship. Prior to this, the ship's power system was damaged by a shell that entered the engine room at the thirty-third second.

The Kanpur, which lost power and had no one to command, was finally carried by the river to the Yangtze River Island before it sank completely, and finally ran aground on the water less than 30 meters away from Changxing Island in the center of the river. Until it was crippled and incapacitated, the warship did not have a chance to fire even a single shell at the shore.

The reason why he was not destroyed by the bottom of the evacuation was because Lin Han, who had been detecting the combat state of the ship with his perceptive power, confirmed that its artillery was completely destroyed and completely lost in battle, so he ordered three artillery positions to transfer targets and bombard other warships on the Yangtze River.

Afterwards, the New York Times, under Lin Hankong, commented on the hapless Kanpur when reporting on the incident.

"This warship, under the wrong order, was executed by the wrong commander, and it chose the wrong opponent at the wrong time and on the wrong battlefield."

The Kanpur is not the only warship that fell into this "wrong battlefield". In fact, all the Anglo-Japanese combined fleets that stayed at Wusongkou fell into this shelling trap that had been prepared for two years.

While the 150-mm heavy howitzers were firing, the rest of the artillery guns arranged in various pre-set artillery positions in the city also used the indirect firing method to give priority to covering the British warships that stayed at Wusongkou. The reason why it was a British ship rather than a Japanese ship was because it was closer, and secondly, because the British shallow water guns were equipped with six-inch guns, which were much more threatening than those Japanese ships with only two or three inch guns.

On the 14th, on both sides of the Huangpu River, the Red Army assembled a total of 60 150-mm cannon howitzers. Eighty 105-mm light field cannon howitzers and 40 Soviet-made 76.2-mm field guns fired nearly 1,000 shells at the combined Anglo-Japanese fleet anchored at Wusongkou within one minute by indirect firing.

In this short minute, of the six British ships, the Kanpur was crippled and stranded after eating more than 30 shells, the remaining five British ships, the Gannet and the Tern, were sunk, the Moth was hit hard and ran aground, and the Falcon and Harrier were severely damaged. In the end, he was surrendered with a white flag. The Japanese were inferior in firepower because of the distance. It was not the focus of the first wave of the Red Army, and in this minute of death, only the Toba suffered more than ten shells and was heavily damaged, and finally sank in Nagakou due to too much water, while the Seta was hit by the main guns on the Pinghai many times in a row. One of the shots hit the power compartment. In the end, the crew sank to prevent capture. The rest of the three ships of the Shoduo class only suffered some slight damage due to their distance.

The 105-mm light howitzer in the hands of the Red Army was not a German product. Rather, it is a French Type 1917 light howitzer captured on the battlefield. The guns are all old World War I guns imported from France by the Nanjing Nationalist Government in recent years, and their light weight and good field mobility are good. Both the Red Army and the White Army were very welcome. The Nationalist Government in Nanking imported one hundred and thirty guns from the French in two years, and of course, all of these guns now fell into the hands of the Red Army.

In this minute of artillery battle, the Pinghai, which was moored at the Jiangnan Shipyard, was not inactive. Although there were only more than 40 crew members on board, there were more than enough to control the ship's guns. Under the guidance of this humanoid artillery radar, Lin Han took advantage of the critical moment when all the attention of the Camp was attracted by the land artillery position, the Chinese and German gunners disguised as workers on board the ship turned the ship's three main guns, and the first salvo hit the three guns of the Gannet, which was closest to him, and directly hit the ship's ammunition depot, causing a martyrdom and sinking into the river.

Although the ship was temporarily inmobile, it was an extremely stable floating battery, and the ship's six 140-mm guns fired at the many shallow gunboats on the Yangtze River. The Tern also suffered several of his powerful 140mm shells, which flooded too much and sank.

The bombs mounted on the 48 Hawker planes that flew from the Hangzhou airport were originally intended to surround and assault the light cruiser Kanpur, the biggest threat on the river, but after they flew over the Yangtze River, their targets were already crippled by artillery on the ground.

The leader of the Hawker flight formation received Lin Han's radio instructions, ignored the disabled British and Japanese Yangtze River fleets, and turned to bomb the defenders stationed at the Baoshan wharf. Forty-eight 500-pound bombs fell on the head, and the defenders of the British, Japanese, and International Merchants who were trapped there were immediately blown up. With the cooperation of the air force, the Red Army that surrounded them launched a general offensive and completely annihilated the remnants of the enemy in less than an hour.

Then, due to the long distance and small target, they did not attract much firepower and were lucky enough to escape the rest of the multi-class three ships, and they only survived for a while longer than their teammates.

At the beginning of the shelling, Li Huamei's shallow gunboat Ruijin had traveled 10,000 meters from the Kanpur, and after the shelling began, she rushed down the river at full speed. In the meantime, she first beat the water dogs, and the front main gun of the Ruijin began to fire from 10,000 meters, and fired 20 shells in one minute, hitting the camp twice, and the ship's front main gun was disabled by his single shot.

Later, seeing that the Kanpur had been destroyed and destroyed, Li Huamei quickly shifted her firepower and bombarded the fleeing Japanese ships in the opposite area. Lin Han ordered the air force not to pursue the three Japanese ships that had escaped, because Li Huamei was eyeing them, and she also wanted to give the young "Red Navy" a chance to fight in real combat.

The maximum speed of the three Japanese ships was only 16 knots, while Li Huamei's main body, the Ruijin, could reach a maximum speed of 21 knots and could maintain a high speed for a long time, and the opponent could not escape at all. However, in order to ensure the stability of the shooting, the Ruijin always controlled the speed within nineteen knots during the pursuit.

In terms of firepower, the Ruijin moved forward with a 128-mm front main gun and a 105-mm knapsack-mounted cannon howitzer, in addition to two Japanese-style three-inch guns removed from the Dinghai sitting in Jiangyin.

Compared with the three Japanese ships that escaped, Li Huamei can easily crush the team in one dozen or three, not to mention that there is also a Jiujiang and two other small gunboats by her side.

This is completely a chase battle between adults bullying children, and its ferocity makes even Lin Han in Pinghai can't bear to pay attention to the scene of "Li Huamei bullying kindergarten children" that happened at the mouth of the Yangtze River.

At five o'clock in the afternoon, when the Ruijin returned from the mouth of the Yangtze River, it brought the news that all three Japanese ships had been sunk. The hard-nosed Japanese fought to the last minute and refused to surrender until they sank. The pursuing four ships captured dozens of sailors afterwards.

As for the commander of the Japanese Third Fleet Hasegawa Kiyoshi who was on board the Seta, the Japanese admiral (who was a vice admiral at this time, posthumously) was unwilling to bear the humiliation of being captured when the Seta sank by itself, and sank with the ship. However, Lin Han didn't want him to die too comfortably afterwards, so he specially went to the place where the Setoshi sank that night to carry out salvage operations, and casually salvaged the sabers, medals and other commemorative relics on his body along with the corpse.

Hasegawa Kiyoshi could have commanded a powerful fleet, but he, like the British Commander Maiden, chose a wrong battlefield, took a wrong wrecked ship, and finally died in great humiliation on this broken ship. (To be continued......)